Imagination

   As I sit here, a constant insomniac, I am looking at a pile of my son's Legos which we allowed him to move to the living room last week. He and I had started a sorting project that I now understand was much larger than I anticipated...

   As I am pondering this pile of plastic bricks and blocks I begin to imagine. What I notice is that I am not imagining what new wonders I might create -- no, I am imagining the locations of the wanted pieces for the partially-completed projects lying about. I actually get down on hands and knees and start moving pieces around trying to find a handful of bricks to add to this project or that...

   Suddenly I realize -- this pile is America and I am the CEOs who have more power than any President, Senator, Congressman, or Judge. My personal interest is seeking out what I need. I'm not really concerned with building anything new -- what intrigues me is finding pieces for the old ideas lying around the edges of the Lego pile.

   Today I am 40 and I still have a Lego helicopter that I built around age 12 (I'm not really proud, but I have a point...). At the time I was exploring all kinds of new things and this project came right out of Airwolf, Blue Thunder, and an influential issue of Popular Mechanics. My son builds new things everyday.

   At 40 what occurs to me is, "I bet I can find a 1x12 piece to stick on that random, abandoned road-copter..."

   I'm not discounting shifting priorities or even factors of importance regarding Legos versus "real life", but I have to wonder if my own father wasn't right. George Bernard Shaw said, "Youth is wasted on the young."

   My father told me that was crap. He said, "Money is wasted on the old."

   I imagine he may have had a point.